New York, NY - Hard rock enigma Slipknot have once again made history. The band's fourth album, All Hope Is Gone, has claimed the coveted #1 debut slot on Billboard's Top 200 chart, after an extraordinary SoundScan recount. The album was initially announced today as a #2 debut, a mere 13 units behind The Game's #1 debut, marking the closest margin in SoundScan history. The chart positions resulted from a reported 238,272 copies of All Hope Is Gone its first week in stores, while The Game's LAX reported 238,285. With such an unprecedented margin, Roadrunner Records and WEA requested an historic recount. SoundScan obliged and chart positions have been reversed, with Slipknot claiming #1 and a new margin of 1134 albums. Final recount numbers are 239,516 for All Hope Is Gone and 238,382 for LAX sold during first week of release. This marks a landmark achievement for Slipknot and Roadrunner.

Slipknot has seen similar outstanding first week sales worldwide, with #1 debuts in Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland, #2 in Belgium, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, and a #3 debut in Norway.

In addition, Slipknot has been nominated for their first MTV Video Music Award in the "Best Rock Video" category for the album's first single, the melodically metallic "Psychosocial." Premiered on FNMTV in July and then later added to regular rotation at MTV and MTV2, the video saw over 80 spins on the channels and has an excellent chance at taking home a Moon Man on Sept 7th.

The #1 position on Billboard is another milestone for a band that has been fastracking its way to legendary status since arriving on the hard rock scene. All of Slipknot's previous albums, including 1999's self-titled debut, have all been certified platinum or better, as have their DVDs, Welcome to Our Neighborhood, Disasterpieces and Voliminal: Inside the Nine. The double live 9.0: Live holds a gold certification. The band has also been nominated for six Grammy awards, having won "Best Metal Performance" in 2006 for "Before I Forget."

Having spent their summer dominating as the main stage headliner for the inaugural Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival, Slipknot's world tour continues on October 8th in Japan. The band will tour Australia and Europe this fall, and return for a U.S. headline run in early 2009

SLIPKNOT's new album, "All Hope Is Gone", has entered the official Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) chart at position No. 1. The LP moved 18,769 units in its first week of release, but only 487 of them were digital, according to Undercover News. 18,232 of the sales were from fans that went into stores to buy the physical CD.

Following the arrest of Kevin Cogill - the man accused of leaking Guns N' Roses' Chinese democracy album online - earlier this week, illegal downloading is once again in the spotlight.

Not that he's one to rant about anything under the sun you understand, but Corey Taylor isn't called The Great Big Mouth for nothing. And, according to the Slipknot frontman, record companies only have themselves to blame for the rise in illegal downloading because "most of the bands they sign are shit."

"Why would you blame [people who download music]?," Taylor said to Kerrang! "Half the fucking albums that are out there are shit. I don't download, but at the same time, I don't buy new music 'cause it all sucks. Okay, there's a handful of bands that I buy, but other than that, I just buy old shit because old shit is good. Sorry!

"People wanna blame the decline of album sales on downloading, I think it's actually the record companies' fault," he added. "I think it's the quality of the product. If record companies would stop giving any fucking mook on the street with a fringe a record deal or their own record label, maybe you would sell more fucking albums, dipshits."

On the first date of the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival on July 9 in Seattle, Washington — the first SLIPKNOT show in two-and-half years — DJ Sid Wilson reportedly leapt from a riser stationed at the back of the stage and landed hard, breaking both his heels. The UK branch of Roadrunner Records grabbed him for a couple of minutes in Texas to chat with him and find out what the hell happened. Check out the video interview on www.roadrunnerrecords.co.uk.

"[Sid] had to take his cast off last night, and I'm telling you, I couldn't even look at his feet," SLIPKNOT percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan told MTV News in a recent interview. "Both his feet were black and blue — and deep. The bruises go, like, 2 inches in. But he's up there every night, no problem. He's so out of his mind, he's got a big bruise on his face because he's not used to slamming his head in a wheelchair. So he's got a huge bruise on his face from smacking his head into his tables. It never ends. You think you're out of it, and then you're back in, on some other painful level. . . Sid was like, 'I broke my feet, but I can't miss a show, so here I am, in this wheelchair.' The good thing is, he now knows he's not 25 anymore."